the latest news in the week's top stories international journalists including an l t news crew come under rebel fire while covering the conflict in syria. the race to the rescue president obama signs a stop gap law to raise taxes for the wealthy as part of the deal to avoid plunging off the fiscal cliff. plus new documents show the f.b.i. knew about a plot to assassinate leaders of the occupy wall street movement but didn't avoid u.s. citizens of this rest of their lives. and an icon of french cinema and a new russian citizen gerardo but here comes to his adopted homeland after fleeing

france over plans for a super tax on the super rich. latest news and the week's top stories this is the wicklow analyse you with me here thanks for joining us this syrian conflict a sore new violence in the first week of the new year it also led to more casualties among journalists covering the crisis once your own correspondent was reportedly killed and a reporter for all she's arabic channel was among a number of media workers injured when his crew came under rebel sniper fire outside damascus on his correspondent in the return of a city. the year has just started but syria's very poor record of handling international journalists covering the conflict isn't looking to get any better so

far because this week earlier reported the pro-government sole journalist a syrian journalist was killed in the country he was wounded on she was then later died in hospital and my colleague from r.t. arabic. was among a group of journalists who were injured who were targeted in the crossfire when they were covering movement of a governmental convoy through the country and. that we were moving from street to street and when we reached the dock my colleagues and i got caught in crossfire we tried to escape running one after another fearing that armed rebels would notice our syrian army soldier accompanied us the entire time the rebels were firing on us and my colleagues and i were wearing bulletproof glass with the word process on the fire and was very intense and it was difficult to find shelter i ran and fell down the rim any other correspondents there with me including iranians and syrians one of the syrian cameramen was also slightly wounded like me because i couldn't say

whether his crew and his colleagues were targeted deliberately by the syrian rebels but some of the nation's some media organizations have been raising concerns as to how the syrian opposition have been handling international journalists working in the country the fate of the ukrainian journalist and how to question of us still remains unknown there have been reports that rebels kidnapped her and demanded ransom for her release and threatened to execute her but it's still unclear whether she is alive and what state she is then reporters without borders issued a warning for the syrian opposition to treat press in according manner and the same pretty much goes for the pro-government forces which have also been responsible for the deaths of many journalists since the start of the conflict. a series of attacks on petrol stations in damascus this week has claimed dozens of syrian lives middle east expert pepper escobar believes a willingness to end the conflict but also come from outside the country very sad

to see to everybody all over the world that the top geopolitical tragedy of two thousand and thirteen is going to be the top geopolitical tragedy of two thousand and eleven the reap of syria the only possibility it would be that the opposition. in a syrian way this sides not to listen to the saudis the turks the qataris the americans the brits and the french and they sit down with the assad government and be work out a transitional government or at least a provisional clear road leading to free and fair elections is this going to happen not likely troubles bring once again in bahrain police down a pro democracy ali with projects now nearing the two year mark just a few minutes. sarti looks at the legacy of the twenty twelfth that could have been of things had turned out differently and explore some of the challenges the world

might face in the coming months. that's later but now the rock obama has given the green light to law increasing taxes on wealthy americans in a move to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff it follows months of political bickering among us lawmakers right up until the january first deadline if the deal hadn't been passed americans could have seen billions of dollars of tax hikes and spending cuts which were due to automatically come into effect and it surely mcgrath's from wide awake news says not all agreements are so hard to pass through the congress. when into me when the cameras are off and it's time to pass a trillion dollar nearly trillion dollar defense bill they have no problem whatsoever coming to coming together and holding hands with that kind of a deal together since two thousand and one namely we've been covering this nation by proxy the world by crisis and it doesn't matter who gets hurt who gets left by the wayside as long as a special interest is served so long as it's always under the shadow of crisis they

will act but it's only when it has to do with acting in behalf of the people of this nation it seems like the people always take a backseat and aussies economics experts that's all that an immediate crisis has been avoided the main underlying problems remain unresolved the fiscal cliff is just more theater bankers and politicians trying to distract people from the underlying root catastrophe that is a bunch of rancor who are manipulating the system day and day the strong economy is first go clip is just more drama more theater and it doesn't really focus on the true underlying problems that we're going to see more of this going forward in two thousand and thirteen anything good bye flecked attention from the mobs what their pitchforks and their torches there are coming out of these people they want to just delay that day of reckoning for as many months as they can but that day of reckoning twenty thirteen it's comic and normal economic outlook for twentieth

because report oh programs are available for you. it's been revealed that the f.b.i. knew of a plot to assassinate occupy wall street leaders but didn't lead them to the potential danger to the euro was instead spying on members of the movement branding them criminals and domestic terrorists. cities house for us. well it's not clear yet why the f.b.i. would neglect to tell activists that there was a potential assassination plot surrounding them what we do know is that new documents obtained by the partnership for the civil justice fund the u.s. human human and civil rights advocacy organization have revealed that the u.s. the f.b.i. the department of homeland security the u.s. military and private corporations all cooperated together to monitor and

investigate optic occupy wall street protesters as quote domestic terrorists and quote criminals now the more shocking revelation the headline of this story is that reportedly buried deep within the government. mentions of a plan to use snipers to assassinate occupy protesters in the movement's leaders in various cities throughout the country these alleged plans were supposed to be taking place in the fall of twenty eleven now the names of the groups or individuals involved in the alleged plot are redacted from the f.b.i. documents but what critics say is clear is that the f.b.i. never alerted any one of the potential any of the potential victims that their lives could possibly be in danger or that there's any threat surrounding them the partnership for civil justice fund received the f.b.i. documents on december twenty second so this is fairly new information and this was after they filed a request under the freedom of information after now many civil rights attorneys previously have accused the f.b.i.

of functioning as a de facto intelligence arm for u.s. corporations during the occupy wall street movement and especially as it grew bigger however some critics say they never ever suspected that the f.b.i. would neglect to tell occupy protesters u.s. citizens about an assassination plot surrounding them. plenty more for you on why not for we diplomatic the egyptian embassy that's a cyprus gets a little slap happy with security at the airport the details of the dustup at l.t. dot com. and prison guards in brazil have busted a car trying to smuggle in special kegs which would have helped in maids engineer a breakout that came within a whisker of getting away with it and find out on the website if it's feeling guilty.

new russian citizen. is on a trip to his adopted homeland where he's received a passport from pass a no from president led to a prius and possibly the french movie icon has been granted citizenship after he turned his back on his native france in iraq over being talks to the monks oh she's met in a corner has the details. french activists are deployed here has mass where the russian president vladimir putin and has received his brand new russian passport so now it's official is it a different you has become a russian citizen now they're meeting to place inside she wears you out deport you it is on a personal trip before that he reminds his french citizenship in move to belgium where we pointedly he has some real estate now this news comes as french president

francois one is trying to put forward a law that will see french citizens who earn more than one million euro piece seventy five percent of their earnings to traps this meanwhile in other french legendary movie i can brigitte bardot is also think of following the footsteps of judge a pretty you but the reason behind it is completely different you know she's also a veteran anymore rights campaigner and she has threatened to apply for russian citizenship if french authorities you for nice pier office take allophones at a zoo in new home still ahead for you in the program but talking on promises and rights groups cry foul over america's new defense acts wish suspects to be detained indefinitely and gives the gun time a bay prison camp open. and as well as a long time leader hugo chavez may be too ill after cancer surgery to turn his boat

inauguration back to as the opposition demands a new election if he doesn't show up. it's been a week of new year's celebrations around the globe with fireworks and cheering crowds greeting twenty thirteen and there were mixed emotions regarding the year that's passed well some sad to say the end but many more hopeful of better times is this a couple of takes a look at the wild that could have been. twenty twelve was certainly full of disappointing headlines hope fueled by the arab spring turned into the turmoil of the arab autumn the war in syria claimed countless lives and the fiscal crisis all the european union torn apart at its very seams and the problems facing our world today certainly don't offer themselves up to an easy fix what if things had turned out differently what if opportunities were actually seized upon instead of missed well here's our look at the twenty twelve headlines that could have been. diplomacy succeeds in syria and ending bloody conflict.

instead this was the image of syria the world saw increasingly violent clashes between government forces and the opposition had claimed more than forty thousand lives efforts to negotiate a diplomatic solution fell flat because divisions ripped apart both the country and the international community hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to neighboring states where many have found conditions to be dismal meanwhile syria's war is threatening to spill over its borders as tensions escalate within and in the region. have told me to try and sanction slashed as a round nuclear to accept. joining to end gun fire the u.s. really needs to restrict far off. mideast peace to israel league two state park has promised on. yet this was the reality israel's assault on palestinian

militants in gaza israel's anti-missile shield repelled the most attacks on its territory but its strike claimed the lives of more than one hundred sixty palestinians many of them civilians despite harsh condemnation from many in the international community the war and israel's subsequent decision to construct three thousand new settlements effectively slammed the door shut to any prospect of peace go through people power moment came. step aside and let a democracy. get lost get most notorious kuantan of my prison permanently shot. euro zone cuts the cuts and lifts austerity. but the news of austerity only tightened as deep public sector cuts brought thousands of angry demonstrators to the streets of greece spain italy and portugal. the worst economic crisis of a generation has battered the european union's very foundations exacerbating tensions between member states with some regions now desperately wanting out i grew

up in a europe that was divided from east to west but i'm now living in a europe that is divided from old to self never at any point in the history of this union has there been more discord of rancor that we covered. corporate cash for the campaign coffers as part of the us political please. know we here for u.k. british quit european union. we found a duty on the soldier point to un free speech and. instead a song remains a political refugee at ecuador's london embassy where he's been granted asylum he continues to fight extradition to sweden over alleged sex crimes charges that he says are politically motivated and tied to his work in leaking international government secrets. the power of people speaking up and resisting together terrifies corrupt democratic power so much so that ordinary people here

in the west and the enemy of governments an enemy to be watched an enemy to be controlled and to be impoverished true democracy is not the white house true democracy is not. true democracy is the resistance of people with the truth against flies from top to right here in london. every day ordinary people teach us that democracy is free speech and just sent. from heretics to hero american whistleblower bradley manning finally free. droning on no more nations agree to end iraq of remote controlled war. egypt's arab spring sees democracy defeat hardline islam as. the reality on the ground was anything but egyptian president mohamed morsi is foul like power grab unleashed fury and frenzied street battles and a fast track constitutional overhaul referendum left

a bitter opposition eager for change for them two thousand and twelve saw the arab spring transform into an egyptian nightmare had the revolution to get rid of a tyrant dictator. in the order to that we made elections a revolution and elections to choose someone to the present us it turned out that this guy is also a tyrant himself but he has had lines may have been the stuff of imagination but that sea of twenty thirteen can bring any of them to life with the coffin of r.t. moscow and back with more news for you after the short break. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm charged welcome to the big picture.

in the news you see good leverage or make sure mccurry was able to build a new age most sophisticated robot which on fortunately he doesn't give a darn about anything mission to teach me the creation of why you should care about humans and. this is why you should care only on the r g dog. i i. i know.

this is the welcome back police in bahrain have again violently suppressed and mounted government demonstrations with the rest of the kingdom approaching the two year mark protests calling for a transition to a democratically elected government and a better white for the country a sham a choice a and dollars from the european bahraini opposition for human rights claims that security forces from abroad are stoking the violence by firing tear gas into the homes of unarmed civilians. the security forces who are of working for the ministry of interior and the hey are practicing a lot of buy in ends and a lot of buying nations to human rights when confronting with pro-democracy protests and behaving and lot of protests and it took place in many different villages and areas around behaving and all of them all of them got a. crack they were a crackdown by that by the security forces and by haim who are close to be and not

by me and they are working and and they've been super interior and if the they were groups from different countries foreign countries like pakistan and jordan and syria and yesterday and the village where i live and sit on it was tear gas excessive you by security forces and i could see security forces running down the streets by my white house and shooting grand immediate inside the houses and the movement was completely peace said but after witnessing that west that was during and position to or this this it to asian and behaving or that of illusion in bahrain it is unlike to what is what they are it claiming like they are in kargil human rights in different countries arab countries but when it comes to bahrain they use double standards so the protesters here it by having old though they are those radical protestors they are the minority and not the majority but they are

using such methods to prevent them violent security forces from entering their there is their religious and attacking an armed civilians and children like we witnessed and the big you have off of the four year old child being attacked by security forces with tear gas canisters. still ahead for you this hour signs of easing tensions between china and tibet late goals and how the wealth of investments may be used to try and prove beijing stating standing in the rest of region. the church of england operates on didn't belong with the state but it's losing washington's and on the way. a sweet little was robbed allowing the u.s. military to detain terror suspects indefinitely including americans without charge or trial the national defense authorization act also extends the restrictions on transferring detainees out of guantanamo fine i think yeah but congressman dennis

kucinich things the move is part of a part time that undermines democracy but right now we're much more of a garrison. garrison plus. a powerful military which keeps asserting itself globally and it doesn't make america any safer and frankly doesn't make the world safer we're spending upwards of six hundred billion dollars for an expanded pentagon presence for more war in afghanistan and for proliferation of war in in yemen and somalia and other places we have a lot of problems here at home that we're not taking care of we have massive unemployment people are losing their homes people are losing their retirement security and i continue to say that we have to start emphasizing taking care of things here at home instead of developing a bigger footprint around the world as far as our military presence and another person to move by chronic critic says and to democratic obama extended an ox at

a loss will do what topping of americans without a warrant a u.s. national security agency whistleblower says nobody is safe from things spied on watch the full interview with william binney later this hour but here's a quick listen. f.b.i. access to the data collected which is basically the e-mails of virtually everybody in the country. and they have at the f.b.i. has access to it all the congressional members are on on the surveillance to it's not no one's excluded they're all included so yes this can happen to to anyone if they become a target for whatever reason. if they were targeted by the government the government can go in with the f.b.i. or other agencies of the government can go into their database pull all that they've collected over them on them over the years and reanalyze it also retroactively analyze everything they've done over the last ten years at least working one part i'm sure i i i believe i've been on it for quite

a few years yeah so i keep telling them everything i think of them in my e-mail so that they when they read it they'll understand what i think of them. and as i was president a good child is currently battling cancer may be too ill to attend his other swearing in ceremony on thursday his political rivals are demanding a new election if he doesn't show up to be inaugurated for his fourth term in office japanese car analyst eric draitser believes the opposition is taking advantage of the situation to undermines the government. what is important is the fact that the opposition is using this as a political mechanism by which they can try to deal a jew demise the government in venezuela remember that in two thousand and two when the united states and spain and other powers around the world collaborated and conspired to oust chavez in an illegal coup and we saw what the significance of

chavez was that he had a base of support on the streets in that country that could not be shaken by an international force and so what they're attempting to do is to use his health situation to break apart that base of support and to convince people that chavez is unable to serve the the constitution in venezuela allows for wiggle room here it does not say that just because he can't be at the inauguration at that given moment that there has to be new elections that is what the opposition is trying to create something that is not explicit they're trying to make it explicit the constitution it says that it can be delayed there are alternative arrangements that can be made the swearing in can take place in a different location and also it says that the new elections can only be called if and only if the elected president is permanently unable to serve there is no indication that chavez won't recover from where he is now so to say that he's

permanently incapacitated is not one hundred percent true. some other international news and brief now a standoff between police and a gunman in the u.s. state of colorado has claimed the lives of three people who were being held hostage is believed the three were killed by the armed man before the barricaded house was stormed the gunman was also killed while one captive not a show escape it happened in our war which last year saw twelve people killed and dozens injured in a cinema shooting during a movie premiere. a pakistani soldier has been killed and another injured during a raid by india's military into the part of kashmir administered by pakistan india says its troops were acting in retaliation to shelling that had destroyed a home a report say exchanges of fire continuing in the disputed region of kashmir has been a source of dispute between pakistan and india for decades but a ceasefire has been in place since two thousand and three. five suspects in the

rape and murder of a female student in new delhi have been linked to the victim by d.n.a. evidence the man was charged earlier this week while a six that will stand trial at a job as a juvenile the twenty three year old woman who was brutally assaulted on a bus and later died in hospital from her injuries that harks part of a nationwide outrage and fueled debate about sex crimes in india. around a hundred british loyalists in the northern irish capital belfast have a target of police officers who retire later with a water cannon and authorities are also investigating reports of shots fired during the clash the previous night saw nine officers injured in several riots that broke out across the city loyalist anger was sparked by a move to end a century old traditional flying the british union flag over city hall permanently throughout the year. it enjoys a cozy relationship with the state but now as the church of england is finding its special status in the u.k. it's coming in discouraging its alarming drop in popularity among the public means

that many are questioning whether its funding and political problem can be justified as a point of boy cum explains. one of the most religiously diverse nations in the world with one official state religion to some it's a paradox i think any institute any faith institution like the church of england is going to have some potential threat on the horizon and those threats on the horizon are basically around its relevance to communities in general other faiths are significant growing in their not only population but the voice in a social and political level so it's really important to have a plurality of opinion rather than just focus on one institution as being reflective of the nation yet the national church has twenty six years on the elected members in the house of lords the upper house of britain's parliament and

it enjoys financial privileges courtesy of the u.k. taxpayer by the church's own admission the number of people coming through the doors of this and every other church in england has hogged over the past forty years a very strong report even warns that in the longer term the established religion faces fading away to virtual envelopment twenty anglican churches just like this one being closed down for worship each year entrepreneurial property developers a snapping them up and converting them to luxury housing or even light clubs while the number of church goers in the u.k. continues to fall some one hundred thousand britons have converted to islam over the past decade three quarters of those white women as you know broaden my knowledge about islam and compared it with christianity i must tell you i found a more logical you know it just resonates with me i like what the prince and.